Butterfly Fields Among Green Eyes
by cartoon moomba
Summary: Seven misshapen things that could have happened, and the seven that didn't. Rated T for language.


**A/N: **Sooo, my first poke into the wonderful world of J.K Rowling's "Harry Potter"...somehow, the characters feel so hard to get a firm hold of. Maybe I have read too many Evil!Harry stories lately, hmmm... Well, I admit I mostly wanted to write this for scene one, five and seven. But then 3 short stories weren't enough, so somehow they evolved into seven... it was harder to put it down on paper then I thought, and I still don't think I did the characters justice – of course, this is slightly AU, so it figures. Oh well, read and review please. I haven't written anything proper in months, and would love to go deeper into writing this fandom. Oh, and ignore lame title. I really, really didn't have a better idea for it...

**Disclaimer: **Harry Potter and everything associated with it belongs to J.K Rowling... though I do hear they're opening a theme park soon, and mmm I can't wait to see the gift shops.

**Butterfly Fields Among Green Eyes**

**(1one)  
**_in which things prefer to stay relatively normal._

Doctor Jane Granger watches the strange woman imposing on their living room floor, and after a moment's pause – _think of the possibilities, the dangers, the unknowns _– she lets her mouth form one syllable.

"No."

"What!" Hermione is distraught, gazing up at her mother in confusion. Behind her, Jane's husband places a reassuring hand on their daughter's shaking shoulders and watches the stranger.

"Our daughter will not be attending this Hogwarts of Witchcraft and Wizardry," he says calmly, firmly, and beneath his touch, Hermione falls into sobbing.

Minerva McGonagall nods curtly, her wand already at her hand. "Very well. I'll need your memories of this to be removed, then, if I may?"

The brunette Muggle-witch cries out in protest, turning to glare at her parents in all her eleven-year-old fierceness – _so young, so dangerous, so unknown _– and Doctor Jane Granger meets the witch's steely gaze with her own. "Please."

"_Obliviate,_" the spell flies through the air, and far in the future, Hermione Granger grows up to follow in her parent's footsteps successfully.

Life is good.

**(2two)  
**_in which even the manipulators have the odd sense of guilt._

The little boy before him is strange, watching him with calculating eyes – _what's in this for me, old man?_ The eyes are too old on his face, and Albus is reaching out to put a hand on the boy's shoulder before he knows what he is doing.

"What are you doing?" The child echoes his thoughts, eyes – _so old, so young, so greedy _- no longer focused on the burning wardrobe in the corner of the room, but instead on the strange auburn haired man.

"I must admit that I do not quite know the answer to that myself," Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore says pleasantly, twinkling, as he guides them both down the Orphanage staircase, the old graying wizard and the boy with the eyes of Hollow obsessed young wizards plotting in the backyard, _the Wand the Stone the Cloak_. "But I suppose I always wanted children, somewhere in the back of my mind. Ah, the pleasures of being as old as I..."

Many years later, a dark-haired man stands before a classroom full of young children, and smiles. His eyes flash an odd mix of maroon and black – still so old, so young, so greedy – and he speaks to the room with open arms.

"Welcome to your Defense Against the Dark Arts class. I am Professor Thomas Dumbledore, and you will be seeing quite a lot of me in your next seven years."

**(3three)  
**_in which decisions impact the future, starting from the smallest of things._

He's all alone on the strange train, ducking his head into every compartment until he finds an empty one. Grateful, he sits down on the velvet cushioning of the seats and leans his forehead against the windowed glass, watching the scenery flash by him at miles per hour.

"You."

He's startled, having not heard the door open. A blonde boy gazes curiously, if not a bit arrogantly at him, his face judging.

"Are you Harry Potter?"

Harry nods, and the boy's face breaks into a grin. "I am Draco Malfoy. Mind if I join you?"

The brunette child considers it for a moment; the boy's face, the way he says his name, and how it's so lonely and strange here – and nods.

"Sure."

And then they're at Hogwarts, and it's so magnificent, and there's a hat on being placed on his heads and his thoughts surface, almost as if summoned, of the wonder, of the loneliness, of his Aunt and Uncle and his need to prove them _wrong _and Draco Malfoy –

"SLYTHERIN!" The Sorting Hat roars, and Harry James Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived, grinning at his new friend, feels as if these seven upcoming years are going to be wonderful.

**(4four)  
**_in which fate can be tempted and tampered with._

His best friend – and Lily – they were dead – Harry, where was Harry! – oh thank god he was alive – no Harry sshh, don't cry—

"Mr. Black." Dumbledore, watching, too calm for something like this – how could he! – Lily – James – Voldemort – Harry –

"Mr. Black, please kindly hand over young Harry to Rubeus... we need to get him to his family as soon as possible, if the blood wards Lily placed were to work to protect him as soon as possible." Even now his eyes twinkle too much – how can he be happy? - ...Petunia?

"You are sending him to that mad cow!" Sirius Black snarls, shaking as he rocks the crying baby in his arms closer to himself. "What the hell are you talking about, Dumbledore? She'll kill him on sight! I know for a fact that Lily would have never entrusted her son to that – that prejudiced bitch!" Harry wails in agreement, and somewhere in the distance Muggle sirens begin to flash.

Dumbledore's words come as if through a thick fog – _Peter! That traitorous, good for nothing son of a bitch rat! –_ blood wards, sacrifice, Voldemort, prophecy—

Sirius breaks. "Screw your goddamn prophecy, Dumbledore! He's just a kid, Voldemort is dead!" No, he's beyond the breaking point – screw Peter, this was hid _godson_, James' and Lily's son and he had Lily's eyes so young – and wild magic is beginning to surround him, feeding on his anger, his frustration, his madness; Dumbledore is trying to calm him. . . the wards are gone that Voldemort set up since the bastard is dead—

"_Raw magic is dangerous," he remembers Regulus smiling, tapping his pencil against his desk as he thinks, on yet another mission for his Dark Lord. "I wonder just how powerful it really is..."_

And with a flash, Sirius Black and young Harry James Potter Disapparate into the night.

Fifteen years into the future, a plane slowly began its descent upon the grounds of Sydney, Australia. In the aisles, watching safely from behind a paneled window as the ground rose up to meet them, a certain individual smirked and turned to his companion.

"So, where to next, Padfoot?"

**(5five)  
**_in which fate plays no hand at all._

Lord Voldemort watched in satisfaction as the house before him burned down to the ashes of the ground on which it stood. Yes. . . James Potter, Lily Potter, their deaths had felt oh so nice, knowing that he had beaten that blasted prophecy. He allowed himself to gloat in the afterglow for several more moments, hidden from prying spells or eyes, and turned his attention to the small, oddly silent bundle clutched in his arms with unsuppressed pure glee.

"And now," Tom Marvolo Riddle whispered, "You die."

Harry James Potter cocked his head at the words, his mother's eyes watching Voldemort as they reflected the light of the famed Killing Curse – and then he promptly died on the eve of October 31st, 1981, without as much as a sound. And Voldemort laughed, and laughed, because there was no longer anyone that could stop him.

Soon, England would go up in flames.

**(6six)  
**_in which it is easy to take the right path._

"No wonder she doesn't have any friends, what with her Know-It-All attitude. I mean, did you see what she was trying to do to me back there?" Ron Weasley's drawls on in a voice rivaling that of Draco Malfoy's, and Harry's patience snaps.

"Oh, sod it," he snarls, and before the shock can register on the redhead's freckled face, Harry sets off at a run after the crying first year witch without a thought in his mind – after all, she was someone like him, before when he was with Dudley and escaping to playgrounds and abandoned roofs. It's simply kinship.

That night, as the duo ditch dinner in favour of chatting comfortably up in the Gryffindor Common Room, a troll stumbles upon a girl's lavatory on the grounds of Hogwarts, smashing it to bits and pieces. No one is there, and the Professors eventually get it under control.

Six years later, one dead Dark Lord lying mangled on the floors of Hogwarts' Great Hall, Harry Potter clasps Hermione Granger's hands into his own and pulls her to him, whispering hotly against her mouth as the whole world celebrates—

"_Will you marry me?"_

**(7seven)  
**_in which there are simply no explanations needed._

Tom Riddle stares emptily at the frail, shaking form of the woman before him. "Very well," he whispers, his voice grating on the air around them, emotionless, and her face floods with relief. "I'll stay," he continues on, squeezing her hand so hard until she cries out in pain, and his eyes narrow. "But only for the boy."

Merope Gaunt nods, grateful, and draws herself together – she has a child, a husband, and nine months of Hell to get through. She knows that she will not be alive by the end of it.

* * *

It's a small, disgusting little shack he thinks as he and his father ride by in their carriage. It's a surprise that it still hasn't been torn down – no one has been around to take care of it, and was that a dead snake nailed to the front door? _Disgusting. . ._

"That is a dreadful place," he remarks casually with a hint of distaste as it finally disappears out of sight, falling farther and farther behind them. Thomas Riddle Senior shifts uncomfortably in his seat, sending an uneasy smile to his son, who continues his musings. "I wonder why no one has yet bothered to tear it down."

The aging dark haired man laughs, loudly. "Let us not be bothered by such insignificant matters. After all, we have a new life ahead of us now."

Tom Riddle Junior smiles one last time at the disappearing village of Little Hangleton, unaware of his prominent blood lineage – after all, what magic was there to show from a muggle and a near-squib? His mother was dead, her few trinkets sold by his father to make the odd pound here and there, and well, his father - his father was blissfully glad that his son, an almost perfect replica of him in terms of appearance, was nearing the age of manhood and had not yet exhibited any sign of what that _woman _called 'magic'.

"Of course, Father."

Somewhere in a pilfering shop far away, a woman screams her curses at the teenage hooligans playing around with fire - Fiendfyre, no less! She seethes, watching her shop go up in flames - no _Augamnti_ able to stop it - and along there, somewhere, buried underneath a mountain of forgotten artifacts, a golden locket with a beautifully carved emerald _S _burns along with it.

Yes, all was well.


End file.
